A Division of the Light (14 page)

“
More
than?”

The rector had placed one hand on the back of the nearest pew. When he lifted it away the skin was coated in particles of ash the color and texture of wet cement. He began to clean his fingers on a handkerchief drawn from his pocket.

“Many of our worshippers will think in terms of desecration, Mr. Pharaoh. They will find it hard to credit that this is only an accident.”

“But it was a lightning bolt,” Gregory said. “It was just bad luck that it hit here.”

“A fireball, most say. Sent for a reason.”

“A fireball, then. With no reason behind it other than the laws of physics. Even your parishioners are bound to understand that the world is an accumulation of chance events.”

The rector smiled wanly. Gregory looked up to the ceiling.

“Will all this be rebuilt to be identical?”

“If Mr. Wells approves such a plan. I have no idea how much a restoration will cost, but I'm sure there will be an appeal.”

From where he stood further down the church Wells could still hear them if they spoke at normal volume.

“At the moment,” he called back, “I'm not even sure how much more of the roof and ceiling will have to come down to make it safe. Scaffolding is an urgent necessity.” He pointed toward the undamaged windows. “Those need to be covered for their protection.”

Gregory glanced across at a stained-glass shepherd Christ, his crook in one hand, immaculate white lamb in the other.

“Victorian?” he asked the rector, but Wells replied.

“Later than the fabric. Standard iconography and somewhat mawkish for my tastes. Sensibilities have changed, thankfully.”

Gregory raised his camera between his hands and held it like a trophy. “I need to do my job. Unlike you, I don't have much time.”

Wells looked at him and suddenly said, “Pharaoh: of course. I can place you now. You took a portrait of one of our bishops. Very recently.”

Keen not to be left out of the exchange, the rector spoke up. “I believe Mr. Pharaoh also took some photographs of a little girl who has visions of the Virgin Mary.”

Gregory looked askance at him. The rector shrugged, a little embarrassed. “When the newspaper phoned for permission I asked who you were,” he explained.

“The girl being one of our faith's many fantasists, no doubt,” Wells said. “Tell me, do you make a specialty of religious subjects?”

“You're not the only person to ask me that,” Gregory answered as he moved into position and checked out the sight lines. “The
answer is no, I don't. In a couple of weeks I'm due to photograph an ossuary, but after that I want to move away from any subject that could be labeled religious. I'm like an actor who doesn't want to be typecast.”

“I believe I know of that ossuary. There's a dispute over what to do with the bones.”

“A journalist is doing a piece that will need illustration. I'm told that the parish only reluctantly agreed to let me work in the crypt. Do you have any influence?”

“None at all, Mr. Pharaoh. I'm an architect, not an archaeologist.”

Gregory walked back along the sodden carpet and framed both rector and architect in a wide shot. Wells deliberately turned to one side so that he would be seen in profile.

“Rector,” Gregory said, “just stand as you are. No, don't move; right in front of me is fine. I can get you nicely in focus and also pull in much of the background with a wide-angle.”

The rector demurred. “I'm really not sure that I should. This isn't about me.”

“No, but you've been interviewed by reporters and it's important that the public sees your face. They'll be able to read things into it.”

The rector's hands fluttered across his scalp as if checking on hair that had vanished long ago. Gregory made the exposure but, knowing he was being taken, the rector unintentionally stiffened his facial muscles.

Wells moved closer. The rector was still uncertain.

“Our bishop should be standing here, not me.”

“The bishop isn't available,” Wells explained to Gregory. “Yet another conference agonizing over social problems, I'm afraid; attendance compulsory for scholars.”

“I'm pleased he's not here. To have him in the picture would be something of a cliché.” Gregory nodded at the rector. “You're much better.” And then, after a pause, he looked at Wells and said, “But you would make this an interesting piece of photojournalism.”

“Really?”

“Don't be so coy, Mr. Wells. You know I'm right.”

“Well, I have no objection. What do you want me to do?”

“We should wait for a minute or so. The light is strengthening, I think. When it slants in through the hole I'll take you looking up at the roof.”

The three men walked further down the church and came to a heap of debris resembling a pyre that had collapsed inwards as it burned. Glass fragments lay across the floor like bright discarded tiles. Both Gregory and Wells took photographs, but Gregory did not have to check to know that his would be unsatisfactory. There was no form to be found within the wreckage, only ruin.

As Gregory neared the altar there was the sound of a shutter clicking. “I heard that,” he said, without turning round. Incinerated spars were strewn on the floor like the remnants of a sacrifice.

“I had the altar and the painting framed,” Wells explained. “Thank you for giving a scale.”

Beyond the altar, set within a gilded frame, was a large canvas of a Christ with sad eyes and one raised hand. In the center of the palm, like a small target, was a circular spot where the crucifixion nail had been driven. Behind and above him the painted clouds parted. A coating of stippled gray covered the surface of the painting so that it was impossible to make out its true colors.

“We are proud of this,” the rector said quietly. “Many of our worshippers find solace in that face.”

“Pre-Raphaelite,” Wells said briskly. “Unfortunately not the Brotherhood, just a minor follower. You can tell by the inferior brushwork. Nevertheless it's certainly worthy of preservation.”

“It looks filthy rather than damaged,” Gregory said. “You'll be able to get it cleaned and restored, won't you? Like the church as a whole, I suppose.”

“If you come back in a year,” the rector said, “all this will be cleared up and restoration almost complete. I'm certain Mr. Wells will help us with that.”

“Only a year?”

“Perhaps a little more. It takes a long time to rebuild order from chaos.”

“I'm not in a position to give estimates,” Wells said. “This was a freak accident and I know from experience that freak accidents cause damage that isn't always obvious.”

He received no reply other than a shake of the head. Gregory began to wonder if the rector might not be able to believe what was so obviously true.

“You do see that it was an accident, don't you?” he asked.

The rector nodded. “Of course. Chance operates beyond the will of God. Although some—a very few—believe that the fireball was a divine warning.”

“God sends a lightning strike as a punishment?”

“They see it as a purifying force.”

“Against what—ungodliness, blasphemy, sexual license?”

“You can see why they should think such a thing.”

“It's difficult to argue against the irrational.”

The rector spread his hands. There was still a smudge of soot on his fingers.

“Some of us live in a world of signs and portents,” he said. “That
girl who has visions—who is to know if what she sees is a hallucination or a true revelation?”

A hazy shadow moved across the floor and all three men looked up as they heard a flapping of wings. A bird descended through the hole in the roof, settled on the summit of an exposed pillar, and looked down into the nave.

“If this is a sign,” Gregory said drily, “then that should be a dove.”

“Sad to say, it's a pigeon. There are hundreds, thousands of them round here. Last month one got in somehow. It took us weeks to get it out. Its droppings were everywhere.”

Gregory smiled. “At the moment, rector, a pigeon is the least of your problems. I'm sorry it wasn't a dove.”

“Even then it would have been chance and not design. Look around you—see what has to be done here. The church has more to worry about than false signs.”

At that moment there was a sharp crack from somewhere in the roof, followed by a rattling sound like a handful of gravel falling against a board.

“That certainly wasn't a divine sign,” Wells said drily. “It was a physical one telling me that the sequence of destruction isn't finished yet. And that the two of you should be in hard hats, too.”

Gregory rubbed his hands together to signal that he was ready to take his photographs.

“I think it would be good if you could look up toward the source of that noise,” he told Wells. “I need just a handful of shots. And if you could stand over here—a bit closer; yes, there.”

“I'd be in profile again.”

“Yes, and in shadow. Believe me, it will be an evocative image. Not quite St. Paul's in the Blitz, but near enough.”

Wells posed with the efficiency of a model, taking his stance
and tilting his head exactly as Gregory asked him to do. In silhouette the brim of his hard hat was a thin diagonal sliver of blackness against the verticals of the church. A check on the Canon screen demonstrated that the images were effectively dramatic. Even Wells nodded in agreement when he was shown them a little later.

Gregory shouldered his camera bag. “I'll take my leave and let you get on with things,” he said.

As he looked round for one last time he realized that he did not like the church. It was too dark, too formal and too cold. The architecture was both lofty and restrictive, the memorial tablets all spoke of a demanding but complacent imperialism, and the dark hardwood pews were uncomfortable places to sit.

If God had existed and ever spoke in his ear, Gregory thought, he would want it to happen not in a place like this but outdoors, on a road or on high ground, with space around him and a wide clear sky above.

“When they built this,” he remarked, “rank and social order and penitence must have meant a lot more than they do now.”

“A different world, Mr. Pharaoh,” Wells said airily. “Everyone will want this building restored so that it still conforms to that world. Perhaps if the destruction had been greater—and many would say it was sacrilegious for me to propose this—then we could have built a modern church on this site: one that was welcoming, inclusive, with closer connections to the everyday world. Are you shocked?”

“You're suggesting that destruction can bring benefits.”

“The past doesn't hold all the advantages. We have to rebuild—but perhaps we have missed a chance to build something better. You say that the world is full of chance events. It's also full of
chances that are missed. And you, Mr. Pharaoh, strike me as a man who misses very few chances.”

Gregory laughed. “I try not to. I don't always succeed.”

He shook hands and prepared to walk away, but the rector had a question for him.

“Tell me: I was told only about your spiritual work, and yet you say you will do no more of that. But what else do you specialize in?”

“I've worked across a wide range of subjects, rector. I think you could say that I've taken almost everything.”

“I see. And your next project? Apart from those bones?”

Gregory laughed. “Flesh, rector; I shall be working on studies of the flesh.”

After a few weeks, Alice was able to look back and see clearly that the crisis of one particular day had gained direction and force far away from Thomas; instead its origin lay amongst the half-truths and recriminations of business life. As the working day progressed it became increasingly obvious that to remain working in that office would be corrosive.

Alice realized that matters would only get worse shortly after she arrived at her desk. A particular transaction had been dogged by weeks of misunderstandings, errors and delay, and now it appeared probable that the entire contract would collapse. She was held to be partly responsible, but to Alice it was evident that a vindictive management had merely selected her as a scapegoat. To that management, however, her opinion seemed uninformed, and her questioning demeanor little short of insolent. When she was reprimanded in front of her colleagues, all of them sat with averted eyes. Not one voice was raised in her defense. After all,
Alice Fell had always been aloof, had never tried to be popular; why should she expect support now?

Aggrieved at her treatment, Alice was certain that her life would become intolerable if she did not take action. Her imagination had been shaping the decision for weeks. She would, of course, walk away at a time of her own choosing, and when her departure would cause the greatest possible disruption. The more she thought about it, the better it seemed that she should work a few more days, perhaps secretly degrade or hide several important files, and then walk out.

When she arrived back at her flat Alice was in no mood for compromise. Even the way she closed the door was notable for its controlled aggression. When Thomas asked how she was, she saw only the falseness of his concern.

She waited for several seconds before replying that she was fine. The words displayed her resentment like a badge. When Thomas nodded and told her that was good, it was clear to Alice that his pleasure was counterfeit.

Thomas was attempting to ingratiate himself by preparing a meal. It was a simple pasta dish, but he fussed over it as if it required particular expertise. He realized that Alice could turn on him at any moment.

She walked across the floor, pacing out the width of her property like a letting agent. Thomas glanced at her and smiled, but then looked away. There was a fluttering around the muscles of his heart.